


Sharing Warmth

by ThePandoricaWillOpen



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The First Avenger Spoilers, During Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 08:52:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePandoricaWillOpen/pseuds/ThePandoricaWillOpen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky have always shared a bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharing Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if Captain's get their own rooms... for the sake of this story, Steve does. Thanks for reading!

As a captain with his own elite force, Steve Rogers got his own tiny room in the officer’s barracks. As Steve Roger’s best friend, James “Bucky” Barnes got to enjoy the privileges of said room. 

When they were younger, they’d shared a bed during the winter. Steve had been tiny then, smaller than any ten year old Bucky had ever seen, even when he wore every article of clothing he owned and at night, even ten layers couldn’t keep him warm. Whenever Steve’s mom had to work double shifts or night shifts at the hospital, he would stay with the Barnes’ family, with Bucky.

“Just cos my mom isn’t there, doesn’t mean I can’t sleep in my house,” Steve protested as they got ready that first night they shared a bed. He was wearing so many layers that Bucky thought he should be sweating from the heat but he saw Steve shiver now and then under all those clothes. He’d told his mother this and she’d made sure Steve had the warmest sheets in the entire house so he wouldn’t be cold. ”I can stay by myself, ya know.”  

But Bucky had a better idea.

“I know,” Bucky replied, rolling his eyes. “But my mom won’t let me sleep over at your place without an adult so you gotta come here. Now, shuttaup and climb on.” Bucky saw him hesitate and added, “You ain’t sleeping on the floor, Steve. We gonna haveta share, okay?”

Bucky had the best night sleep of his young life that night. And all the nights that followed as he wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist and pulled him close whenever the cold got to be too much for him. That’s what best friends did, right? Protect each other no matter what.

As adults, they’d shared a tiny apartment in Brooklyn that barely fit a single mattress and a table but it was enough. Steve still got chills during the winter and Bucky still wrapped his arms around him at night, pulling him against his chest and listening as his breathing rattled in his chest. Steve’s somewhat unsteady heartbeat anchored Bucky in more ways than one.

And that didn’t change, even if Steve had tripled in size and could no longer get sick.

For some ungodly reason, Steve liked to read reports while sitting back against the wall on the bed. At first, Bucky had made fun of him (“My report isn’t so interestin’ that you gotta read it in your skivvies”) but eventually it became a thing that Steve did. Another quirk like carrying a sketchbook and pencil within everywhere he went.

Today’s mission had gone both according to plan and completely awry. Sure, they’d gotten their intel but they’d lost three men while doing it. Bucky knew that, even if they weren’t Howling Commandos, the guilt of those men’s death was weighing Steve down. He was sitting against the wall, report on his lap, his eyes unfocused as Bucky walked in and began to undress. He didn’t even look up when he called for him, worrying Bucky further. He undressed quickly, setting his uniform on the back of a chair for tomorrow and went over to the bed.

He climbed into bed, pushed the file off of Steve’s lap and turning until he could wrap his arms around Steve’s waist. He heard a small sigh from above as Steve pushed himself off the wall and leaned back on the bed. His back to Bucky, he grabbed onto his right arm and pulled it around his waist, holding it there in his hand. Bucky pulled him close until his nose touched the back of Steve’s head. 

“Johnson was twenty-three, Buck,” Steve whispered. “He had a girl back home he was gonna marry and Fredericks’ had a - he had a kid.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Stevie,” Bucky said for the hundredth time today. 

“I know. It’s just -” Steve’s hand tightened around Bucky’s. “You are all I’ve got, Buck. There’s no one back home waitin’ for me. No girl, no family. Just … you. And you’re right here beside me.”

“Hey,” he placed a small kiss at the base of his neck and whispered, “I’m with you till the end of the line, remember? And that line ain’t endin’ anytime soon.”

There was a pause. Bucky thought that maybe he’d gone too far. Best friends didn’t cuddle and they sure as hell didn’t kiss each other.

“You promise?”

Bucky let out a shaky breath and said, “I promise, Stevie. I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

(The next day, they get intel on Zola’s location.)

(A few days later, Bucky, Steve and Gabe zipline down onto a moving train.)

(That night, Steve lays in bed, clutching Bucky’s pillow against his chest and inhaling his scent, as he cries for the first time since his mother’s death.)

(A month later, the Valkyrie crashes into the Atlantic and a nation mourns the death of Captain America.)


End file.
